The fitness industry is very aware that moving or exercising on carpeted surfaces while wearing rubber soled or athletic shoes is difficult, compromising and dangerous. This problem occurs because athletic shoes are not designed to move freely on carpet. Specifically, athletic shoes provide too much grip on carpet and do not allow a wearer to turn, slide, twist, or pivot in order to move or to do exercises properly and safely. Such a strong grip can cause various injuries and put unnecessary stress and strain on the muscles and joints of the lower body. Those injuries including, but not limited to, the lower back, hips, knees and ankles because while a wearer tries to accomplish these various movements the shoe will stay stationary causing the wearer to move in an unnatural and potentially harmful way.
The home fitness and video games industries, in particular need to address this problem because the majority of their target market will use their instructional fitness or sport interactive games at home on carpeted surfaces. With the latest video game technology of motion recognition, more people than ever are choosing to stay home to workout, dance and even play sports. Can you imagine playing tennis or basketball on a carpeted court? But that's what the developers of these interactive games are asking you to do, which is dangerous, and they know it. They advertise their products by photographing people playing the games in their athletic shoes, which lessens the chance of injury and on hard wood and/or polished studio floors because it's safer and easier to move on than carpet.
This type of misleading advertising has been going on for decades with the origin of the home fitness industry. The choreography for the home fitness market is developed, taught and filmed from expensive wood polished studio/dance floors so no one gets hurt and can do the exercises properly. So why would the fitness industry ask those at home to do what they themselves will not do on carpeted surfaces? Because neither the fitness nor the entertainment video game industries know how to fix the problem of moving effectively and safely on carpet. Participants are not aware that it is neither their inability to learn nor their current level of physical fitness that is holding them back and causing potential injuries. It is the surface of the floor they are working on and the movements they trying to accomplish upon them.
By fixing this problem, the home fitness/game enthusiast can finally have a level playing field in trying to accomplish what is being asked from them. Once the dangers of moving on carpeted surfaces in athletic/rubber soled shoes are known by the general public, the implicated industries will not have to discontinue or go back and change their older products. By simply including and/or endorsing this small, lightweight, portable, convenient and invaluable device, they will have given their consumers the knowledge and the tool to overcome the obstacle of moving on carpeted surfaces.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention, as embodied in the non-limiting and exemplary embodiments disclosed herein, to overcome or avoid these problems and provide a device, which allows a person to move and/or exercise safely and properly on carpet while any type of footwear.